While French media giant Vivendi Universal managed this week to sidestep one potential problem, it’s now facing another.

Yesterday, just hours after landing new short-term financing to dodge a cash crunch, the embattled owner of Hollywood’s Universal Studios and the world’s largest music company received another blow: France’s stock-market watchdog has launched a probe into the company’s public accounts back to January 2001.

The French securities regulator, The Commission des Operations de Bourse, announced it opened an investigation “related to the financial information released by Vivendi” in a statement issued after France’s financial markets closed.

COB officials said the move was more of a preventative measure to make sure Vivendi plays by the rules, rather than a search for evidence of wrongdoing. The COB said its investigators can subpoena Vivendi documents and have started to search the company’s premises.

Last week, the COB disclosed that it asked Vivendi earlier this year to restate its planned 2001 financial statements because they didn’t conform to French accounting standards.

News of the probe partially eclipsed Vivendi’s success in lining up short-term financing to ease its severe cash crunch.

When Jean-Rene Fourtou took the reins from ousted Chairman Jean-Marie Messier at Vivendi last week, he said one of his priorities was to address the liquidity crisis facing the company.

After holding emergency talks with its creditors for the past week, the cash-strapped media giant yesterday secured a loan of nearly $1 billion from a consortium of six banks and expects to receive an additional $2.5 billion to $3 billion in short-term financing in the next few days.

Shares of Vivendi, which had plunged as much as 7.1 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, closed down 26 cents at $17.60.